Pollyanna’s Intergenerational Gladness

This chapter explores how Pollyanna, placed in the role of the Romantic child, is able to influence her entire community using the glad game. The chapter argues that she does so through consensual solidarity: as Pollyanna enters adulthood, the community expects that her influence will end, and indeed, Pollyanna complies by applying her lessons of positivity to herself. In this way, the two Pollyanna novels reinforce patriarchal standards. This mutual influence, including Pollyanna’s diminishing use of the word “glad,” is supported by the close reading and the distant reading conducted using the digital tool of Voyant.